Tanner's 1st PAT meeting

What is the Parents As Teachers Program?
The Parents As Teachers Program is a FREE year-round program which offers parents:

• research-based information on how children grow and develop;
• types of activities and toys that will foster learning and nurture development;
• methods of positive discipline; new techniques for problem solving; realistic expectations of child behavior;
• and attitudes that will raise children's self esteem.

Tanner was evaluated last Monday by one of the PAT instructors in my school district. We were contacted by the representative from the school district in which we live, but I was more comfortable going with one from MY school. He was assessed from two perspectives: one being the corrected age being preemie, and the other being his chronological age. The age groupings are quite large, so here is how it all panned out. She went down a list of things that a baby should be able to do by the age of 2.5 mo. Tanner was 16 weeks old at the time of our appointment, but being 7 weeks premature, he was first viewed as 9 weeks old. Tanner had mastered or shown signs of doing ALL of them. So, we moved on to the list of milestones that a baby should accomplish between the ages of 3-5 months old. Tanner was doing about half of of them. For instance, he doesn't try to grab things that are out of his reach, but he can get a very strong grasp on things that ARE within his reach (like my hair!). The list was quite lengthy and there was a lot of Q&A going on. His P.A.T. Educator asked me if we had ever had a conversation back and forth. I said no. Right at that time, Tanner coo'd and I mimicked him. He coo'd right back. This went on for a little bit until all of a sudden it hit me! THAT was a conversation! haha